`Two Davids' vie to be Tory leader

In a first for Britain, television is to air a U.S.-style debate, the clash of aspirants for the Conservative helm

November 03, 2005|By Tom Hundley, Tribune foreign correspondent.

LONDON — One is a 30-something graduate of a posh private school who sees himself as the political heir to Tony Blair. The other, nearly a generation older, grew up in a public housing project in a tough neighborhood of south London.

Neither would seem to fit the usual template of Conservative Party leadership.

But then Margaret Thatcher didn't exactly fit that mold either.

David Cameron, 39, an "Old Boy" from Eton, and David Davis, 56, the son of a single mother from Tooting, are vying for the leadership of the Conservative Party and the chance to restore its electoral fortunes after three successive thumpings at the hands of Labor.

They face each other Thursday evening in a U.S.-style televised debate, the first in British politics.

Savvy Cameron is favored

Cameron goes in as the heavy favorite. Smooth, savvy, of impeccable pedigree and oozing easy charm, he has risen through the party ranks swiftly. First elected to Parliament in 2001, he became a member of the shadow Cabinet last year.

He declared his candidacy for the party leadership barely a month ago, and less than a week later, after delivering an impressive speech to the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, he found himself the unexpected front-runner.

Michael Howard, the current party leader, announced his decision to step aside days after his defeat in the May general election. Other Tory elders, among them Ken Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind, fell by the wayside in the early jousting for the leadership post.

Cameron's sudden popularity among Tory activists appears to be a belated acknowledgement that the only way to beat Labor is to copy Labor. In Cameron, Conservatives believe they have found a fresh face of their own who can match Blair's sunny optimism, earnest eloquence and sure instinct for the political center.

That is bad news for Davis, who went into last month's party conference as the favorite and came out fighting for his political survival.

His speech to the party faithful was tepid and uninspiring, and he came across as yet another in a growing line of Tory hopefuls destined to be hammered by Labor.

Davis' poll numbers dismal

A poll of party members taken immediately after the Blackpool conference indicated that 66 percent favored Cameron and only 27 percent supported Davis.

When those numbers came out, some party officials and pundits suggested that Davis bow out. He refused.

"You don't measure the outcome of a race after the first furlong," he told Sky News. "What I want to do in the course of the next several weeks is to actually have a serious debate about taxes, about the sort of economy we want, about the public services we want, about the principles that we stand for."

Thursday's debate probably is his last best chance to climb back into the race. In the peculiar calculus of these events, Cameron has everything to lose and will probably try to play it safe, while Davis merely has to do better than he did at the Blackpool conference.

Although lively debate is the bread and butter of British politics and both men have honed their skills on the floor of the House of Commons, this will be Britain's first encounter with a prime-time television spectacle.

The "Two Davids," as the media has dubbed them, will be joined on the stage by a third --British Broadcasting Corp.'s David Dimbleby, who will moderate. Questions will be fielded from the studio audience, and the candidates will be allowed to question each other directly.

Registered Tories to vote

No matter who is declared the winner by the pundits, the only verdict that counts is the one from the 300,000 or so registered Conservative Party members who this week began receiving their postal ballots.

The ballots are due back Dec. 5, and the results are to be announced the next day. In the meantime, the candidates will hit the hustings.

On key policy questions, there is not much space between them. Both promise to lower taxes. Both are classic Tory Euroskeptics eager to limit Brussels' power; both hate the euro.

On other topics, Cameron, who has called for a fresh look at Britain's punitive drug laws, stumbled slightly when asked about his own drug use. He said he had "a normal university experience" but declined to elaborate. Davis favors zero tolerance for drug dealers and tougher sentencing for users. He also supports the restoration of the death penalty.

Most political analysts believe that if the Conservative Party is to return to power, it will have to move toward the center, reach out to voters under age 35, especially women, and shed its reputation as the party of pessimism.

The polls suggest that Tory activists believe Cameron is the answer. The next general election is still four years away. It is widely assumed that by then Blair would have stepped aside for Gordon Brown, his less-than-cuddly chancellor of the exchequer.